Strength
by DiamondNinja914
Summary: Blair remembers a lifetime of owners while Maka's life hangs by a thread. Spoilers. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: All righty. This is my second SE fic, as my earlier one, "Duct Tape", from last week, had excellent reviews, and I decided that I would post another. This one came to mind about an hour ago. It takes place somewhere between seasons three and four of the anime, but Blair is a bit more of an older sister to Maka like she is in the manga. And, she is so, so very OOC in this. I'm sorry. And I utterly failed at her odd speech pattern, the switching between first and third person.**

** I'M UNGRAMMATICAL GARBAGE! *Collapses, bangs fist on ground, sobbing.***

** Actually, my grammar is okay, it's just... Blair(shudder).**

** No yuri. Eew. **

** Oh, and: SPOILERS for the end of the anime. Very important.**

She had been sitting at the window all day.

The leaves had blown by behind her, but for once she hadn't chased them. The smell of food wafted in from the local market, but the little purple cat didn't notice anything. Anything but the operation going on inside.

Blair tried to look inconspicuous, as much so as she could considering she was a cat with violet fur and a witch's hat, but she did her best. She had to be there, and there was no way some creepy professor was going to chase her away.

Hours passed, and the man in the lab coat continued his work on the small figure on the table. An IV line fed her the chemicals that kept her asleep through the procedure. Blair almost left several times, but stayed, willing herself to be strong.

Finally, the man in the coat and the woman in bandages were done. Their expressions were grim. They stripped off their gloves and conversed in low voices, keeping away from the door, which thankfully brought them closer to the window where Blair kept her vigil.

"It doesn't look good," said the man. "I did all I could, but, the wounds did some damage."

"Are you sure, Professor Stein?" Asked the mummified woman. "Those wounds looked deep, but not too much so."

"Normally, I would guarantee her survival. But with an attack like that, a combination of physical and magical, I... I've never had to do this before. We just have to hope she's strong enough to pull through."

"What are we going to tell her weapon?" The woman, whom Blair had seen before, always looked so composed, but now she dropped her head onto one hand. "She and Soul were always so close. It's possible he may never resonate again."

"I just don't know, Nygus. The same with her father; I cannot say how he will be affected, but it won't be pretty."

They went on for a few minutes like this, but Blair heard none of it. Maka was... this was bad. This was so, so bad.

She broke out of her trance when the door was opened and Soul was let in.

"How is she?"

"She's not doing so well," came the Professor's reply. How easily he softened blows.

"What do you mean, she isn't doing so well? You have to be more clear when you say things like that!" Soul exclaimed, his voice rising.

"She's unconscious now, but we need you to see if you can communicate with her."

Soul looked at the older man in surprise. Of course he realized things were worse than 'not so well', and he was starting to understand that for some reason, Dr. Stein would not be able to talk to his precious meister, and this was bad.

The boy slowly made his way to his partner's side, taking her hand in one of his, and putting his other on her forehead. He closed his eyes in deep concentration, but after a few minutes Stein touched Soul's shoulder, causing his eyes to open.

"It's... it's like hitting a brick wall," the young weapon said hoarsely, and was about to close his eyes again when Stein led him out of the room, despite avid protests.

The Professor turned to Nygus again. "I'm out of ideas. A weapon's energy comes from the souls they consume, and much of the meister's energy is just piggybacking off of their partner."

"Black blood?" Nygus asked. "If not Soul, Crona might be able to control it."

Stein just shook his head. "As I said earlier, all we can do now is hope."

They left the room, after agreeing to not share the details of Maka's condition, and to keep out all visitors.

Blair looked from side to side, checking for passersby. Satisfied, she undid the latch on the window, as it wasn't locked due to the fact that they thought no one would break in via the seventh floor, and slipped under the opening. Upon landing on the floor, she turned into a human. She sat down in the lone chair, a white and green mess of stitches on wheels. She brushed the bangs off of Maka's forehead.

"Hey there," she began, ears drooping. "You have to get better, nya?"

The cat was greeted only with silence.

"No, really. Miss B doesn't know what she would do without you." She exhaled heavily. "I never told you this, but... I'm immortal. In a weird way. I don't get older. I'm Miss B, and I'll always be the same Miss B.

"Until all of my souls are taken. I'm down to two now, you know that? I had three when I met you. In a way, I guess I'm a little happy I'm almost out, because I've lived for a long time. And when I met you, I was so, so happy. I've lived with a lot of other people. I even used to live in England, and I stayed in the gardens outside a manor, and I got food there because the baron's daughter adored me, and she brought me a little bit of her dinner every night. She was seven when she caught the Black Plague. So I stayed with her mother, who took me in because she'd seen her child play with me, and one day, when she was very old, she wondered out loud why I had lived for so long, so I told her what I was. Until then, she'd thought I was just a normal kitty, nya. She was so afraid she tried to drown me in a bucket of water, screaming that I was possessed.

"And that was how Blair lost her first soul. But Blair never gave up on humans, and she even tried to live like one for a little while, until her girly form caught the same sickness that had taken the little girl away, and then she lost another soul. So she stayed in a home with an older lady as a kitty again, but this time never told her about who she was. And when she died Blair was so, so sad.

"And then Blair decided to come to America on one of those big ships that always came with food and people and whiskey. And so, she got on a boat that had other kitties on it, that were there to keep the rats away from the food. And one day, Blair got into a fight with another one of those cats, and we were in too small a space to transform, so Blair lost another soul.

"And one day, the ship finally landed in America, so Blair decided to stay at a hospital and try to make people happy. One of the nurses, a woman dressed as a man, took her home and gave her a place to sleep, because Blair had broken her foot. And I was happy. But the house caught on fire, and Blair couldn't climb the stairs out of the basement because of her foot, so she lost another soul. When she woke up, she turned into a girl again and dragged the nurse out of the burning house, and the nurse understood what I was, and she let me stay. And on New Year's of 1850, I floated some candles on pumpkins inside the house to celebrate. Someone walked by and saw the flying pumpkins, and told everyone, so the nurse was thought to be a witch, and she was burned at the stake, and I was burned as well, because I was thought to be her familiar.

"I decided to go back to England for a little while, just to visit. I had already moved into my little pumpkin house outside Death City. I went to a bar late one night, and when I was on my way home I heard someone behind me. He looked at me with these hungry, thoughtless eyes. I tried to run away, but he caught me, and I lost another soul. I got up again, and flew above him to watch, and I was ready to attack if I needed to. He killed another girl that was just walking that night. I was too scared to try to stop him. After I saw her die, though, I decided I would fight back. He turned, because he'd heard someone else, and something right there stopped me from doing anything. Fate, maybe. But here it is. I saw before he did. A boy and a girl, standing on some steps close to where the man was hunting.

"'Serial Killer Jack the Ripper,' you said. 'The hunting of human souls is strictly forbidden.'"

Blair stopped and caught her breath. She rubbed Maka's forehead, something itching at the back of her mind.

"There were others, too. Too many. And Blair remembers all of them. So, when I found you, I was so excited. You were a meister, and meisters live so much longer than normal humans. And you were just a little girl, then too. You could understand what I was, and you wouldn't be punished for having me. I wanted to keep you forever. I wanted you to be my last master.

"That's why you have to wake up, nya?"

Something occurred to Blair right then. She remembered what Nygus had said. Maybe Soul couldn't get in because of the black blood. Was that it? She took Maka's hand and put one of her own on the girl's damp forehead, closing her eyes and reaching out with her mind.

_Maka-chan?_

Nothing.

She tried harder. She tried to _feel _Maka. But there was no response. Only... a presence. Maka's soul was _right there. _So small and weak. She tried to listen, to hear if the little meister was even trying to fight.

And she heard.

Not that she heard what Maka was doing, she heard what Maka was.

She peered closer, trying to "see" in the "darkness". She didn't have the same abilities to read people like meisters did, but she had enough blood of a witch in her to tell the difference.

And she knew that Maka wasn't really a technician.

"A weapon," she breathed. "Why didn't you tell me?" Blair felt so small. The girl she'd trusted had lied. Lied to everyone. That was when she realized just how small the weapon in her was. Maybe Maka didn't even know.

"And if you did, you wouldn't have known for very long. You'd have known... you'd have known they'd take Soul-kun away from you." It was impossible to tell which was the case.

And now, it seemed, no one would ever know, not because Maka would keep the secret, but because she was so fragile that even the doctor whose apprentice she was had just about written her off.

"Your secret is safe with me," Blair whispered. She wondered if she even wanted to find someone else to share her last two souls with.

That was it.

"Pum-pumpkin!" Blair cried in excitement, before realizing she had to keep quiet. She concentrated everything she had on just the girl's arm, hoping beyond hope that she was right.

And out of Maka's forearm came a long, jagged black and sliver blade.

Forged weapons can take lives. Born weapons can take souls.

Carefully, Blair pulled up the partial weapon and rested it at the point where her neck met her shoulder, and dragged it, painfully, through the muscle. She grit her teeth and pulled with seemingly superhuman strength, in one stroke bringing the end of the pseudo-scythe through her heart and under her arm.

Everything went black.

She woke again a few moments later in her cat form, her blood on the floor, one soul shining in the darkness of the room. She became human again, and tried to grab the shining ball of energy.

"Oops," she said. "Only weapons can touch these." She lifted Maka's hand and caught the soul with some difficulty. She closed the girl's fingers around it, and held it to the small scythe/meister's chest, until it leaked into her heart.

Blair slipped out of the window again, just as Maka opened her eyes.


End file.
